To continue contrarian's post - that is why learning about the normalized stats (the # and +) - because players like Ruth, Cy Williams, Gavvy Cravath, Buck Freeman..etc have very good HR/100# numbers. If you're going for power - someone I love is 1979 Dave Kingman.

There are also quirky players that have good HR numbers when normalized IF they are in the right stadium (which can cut both ways - so watch your pitching staff's HR/9 numbers):

Vern Stephens
Dick Stuart - one year is great, another looks great but check the performance history, I forget which is which between '61 and 63
Bob Horner
Rich Hebner
and two players I never see mentioned in the forums:

Reggie Jackson has NEVER underperformed for my teams (in OLs that is, using a number of different seasonal iterations: he is doing lousy on a prog team right now for me)

And my money for the best hitter in the whole SIM that is reasonably affordable - outperforming Ruth '29 on at least one team that had them both, is Hal Trosky '36.
Also, while Willie Mays is known to be an underperforming player put him in Fenway Park or Coors and he lights up.

Oh, and of course there is HoJo as part of a balanced attack heavy on the HRs. It is true, though, that I have never won a championship using this strategy, but have gotten HR based teams in the playoffs several times. So it is possible and I am not that good at this, so someone who knows what they are doing can do better, I am sure.

HR hitters can be awesome in theme leagues without deadball pitchers. If there's no deadball (pre-1920) pitching in a league, I do try to stock up on power if the talent (per theme rules) indicates that the strategy is valid.

But yeah, in Open Leagues, they suck, because there's way more suppression than their can ever be offense in this sense. Most pitchers will be pre-1920 (or named Greg Maddux), and -HR parks are also rampant.

Posted by contrarian23 on 12/6/2012 6:39:00 PM (view original):As biglenr says, HRs are difficult strategy to build a team around in the current version of the SIM. MOdern guys in particular have 3 big things going against them:

1.) They don't normalize well (take the time to learn what the + and # stats mean...most modern HR hitters have HR/100# that is less than their actual HR/100)
2.) Pitchers who allow very very few homers...many of whom allowed 0 in real life. The algorithm pits the hitters HR frequency against the pitcher's HR allowed frequency - and actually weights the pitcher a little bit more. So put a guy who hit 50 HR in 600 PA (1 per 12) against a guy who allowed 2 in 1000 PA (1 per 500), and even if you average it out, you're looking at a HR very infrequently. Pitchers who allowed very few HR in real life tend to allow very few in WIS as well.
3.) You're going to see a lot of parks that seriously reduce HR. Yes, you are in Yankee III, but a lot of parks in the league have -2 or -3 or -4 HR ratings.

Not to say that it's impossible. There are some guys who can put up big HR numbers: Ruth, Cy Williams, Cravath, Buck Freeman, a couple of Hank Greenberg seasons, etc.

I don't want to disparage the overall point here, which is still true, but the statement that the engine "weights the pitcher a little bit more" is dead wrong. It may wind up looking that way, but most power hitters hit more than half of their RL homer totals, certainly more than half of their era-neutral totals, in spite of the fact that relative to power hitters' HR/hit rates most OL pitchers' HR/hit rates are functionally very close to 0. Which is what they should do given that, unless WIS lied to us, just over 60% of the HR calculation is based on the hitters HR/hit rate. Basically, the hitter is weighted at 1.5x the importance of the pitcher in determining home runs.